Crossfire r9 290x with r9 290

Hey guys

I was looking at getting the MSI r9 290x Lightning 4gb gpu but i already have an r9 290 tri-x oc and was thinking of running them in crossfire. Would this work properly, I've had a look on some forums and they were saying that it should work fine but i was wondering when running 2 cards in crossfire if both cards should have to be the same memory and core clock speeds. Also would a 1000W power supply be a good fit for these 2 cards and an fx 8350.

Unlike SLI, which requires the same card, same RAM, same pretty much everything. AMD lets you play it fast and loose. You can mix GPU, RAM, clock speed, venders pretty much whatever so long as the GPUs are the same family. 

An R9 290 and 290X will work fine in Crossfire. Although if you already have an R9 290 just get another one. An Asus DCUII R9 290 can be had for $230 and will perform the same in Crossfire as a fancy 290X. No point in getting the pricy card. 

don't get the DCUII cooler on the 290. the cooler is not fitted to the core. It was made for GK110, which is larger. When on the 290 a heatpipe does make contact and leads to poor cooling.

a triX or Windforce is the better cooler over the DCUII [be sure to click links to graphs]

I have two DCUII R9 290s. They are fine. 

Mine, in a Define R4, never goes over 75 under load with a pretty sizeable OC. My wife's with a similar OC in an H440 never goes above 74. So....

Your graphs. 76 v 72. Okay yeah it is worse but still better than the 95 the reference ones run at. I can stand a difference of 4 degrees. Especially when they are so much cheaper.

I just looked and saw a Windforce for ~$30 more. It also has a lower base clock speed. I'll take the 4 more degrees. Agreed, it isn't ideal and I would think a company like ASUS would put more thought into their products but to me it is a non issue. Especially when reviews I have been reading put the thermals more around 73-75. 

it depends on what you want really. both are great cards, one is objectively hotter, because of poor design. but that doesn't mean it has all the issues associated with being hotter (it has close to none), should've said that before. as the difference is pretty much negligible and user preference.

it all depends on your case (literally and metaphorically) They measure the DCUII at 73-75 but that should mean they review competing cards 4C lower in the same scenario. I'm just saying may tom's case had a warmer case

Personally since I'm overclocking I need that 4C difference and it also gives me slight piece of mind knowing it's cooler.

I have a 290X and a 290 in crossfire, it works rather well. Sure you won't get the same performance as two 290X:s, but you'll get better performance than a lone 290X. And for games that doesn't work well with Crossfire, a single 290X usually is good enough as those game usually are older games.

My cards are liquid cooled and I find with the later drivers they seem to stick at their max clocks no matter what. I can max out my PSU (860 Watt) if overclock them to the max, although I suspect my power hog of a CPU is very much part of that problem. A 8350 at 4.8 GHz and almost 1.6 Volts peaks over 500 Watts from the wall in Prime95. Much like the old Sandy 2011 chips :) If i downclock my CPU to saner levels I can keep my GPUs at 1100 MHz core no problem. A good 1000 Watt PSU shouldn't have a problem at all.

One is a reference Sapphire 290, the other a Powercolor PCS+ 290X (bios from techsupport).